


fight every fight like you can win

by tsalmavet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 04, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Incestuous Undertones, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jewish Winchesters, M/M, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Sam Winchester's Visions, gencest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 09:51:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14041626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsalmavet/pseuds/tsalmavet
Summary: Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to shake off the vision.  But there they are, superimposed like a camera flash behind his eyes: Castiel, Sam, and Ruby, a last-stand triptych at the gates of Hell.An alternative beginning to Season 4.





	fight every fight like you can win

**Author's Note:**

> title from walking is still honest, by against me!: "this is one voice not to forget: fight every fight like you can win / an iron-fisted champion; an iron-willed fuckup"

The heat presses in all around them, heavy and thick with moisture, so unbearably hot that it twists right back around again to cold. Sam shivers, goosebumps running up and down the back of his neck. Hackles raised. He’s having the most bizarre episode of déjà vu he has ever felt: with the recursivity of a dream, he remembers how this scene had looked when he lived through it the first time, as a vision.

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to shake it off. But there they are, superimposed like a camera flash behind his eyes: Castiel, Sam, and Ruby, a last-stand triptych at the gates of Hell.

***

It sounds like a joke, but Sam’s life has been a total joke since—well. It’s a joke these days. Here’s how it goes: a demon, an angel, and a fuckup walk into a bar. The part of the bar will be played by the gates of Hell itself. The part of the fuckup will be played by Sam. They plan to brute-force their way in and emerge, victorious, with Dean and his soul. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. Well. That’s the punchline, isn’t it? There isn’t any way for Sam’s life to get worse than it already is.

***

Here’s the rub: Sam knows that his powers come from the Yellow-Eyed Demon, and therefore can probably be trusted about as far as he can throw them. But they’ve saved his ass, and Dean’s ass, more than once now. He thinks about the armoire he moved in Max’s house, his premonition that returned them to Lawrence, the vision of the town bell that he sent to Dean from Cold Oak. To be honest, the powers are all that he has, the only weapon that might give him even the slightest advantage over the forces of Hell that have stolen Dean from him. Leaving his powers untapped in that context seems stupid. It would be stupid, right?

Ruby agrees with Sam, keeps telling him that there are things he can do to get stronger, to train himself. Sam likes the idea of learning his powers through drills, the supernatural equivalent of running laps or shooting at cans in the backyard. Measurable progress. But of course Ruby is a demon, so what she wants Sam to do is to yank black demon souls right out of their vessels and fucking _eat_ them.

Sam has no doubt that a steady diet of demon souls would amp up his powers faster than a ballplayer on steroids, but he is equally sure that there would be a nasty price to pay. And given his usual luck, Sam wouldn't end up being the one to pay it. He doesn’t think he can stand it, finally saving Dean only to watch him get right back on the Winchester self-sacrifice perpetual motion machine.   Ruby doesn't get it, because for her the ends always justify the means. She doesn't remember what it feels like, having to live with the consequences. Sam, who has lost everyone he ever loved because they died protecting him, has trouble remembering any fucking thing else.

Castiel tries to reassure Sam that the right thing to do is to sit and wait for the forces of Heaven to sort everything out. Cas is an angel who has fluttered down from the divine realm for the sole purpose, as far as Sam can tell, of arguing with Ruby, giving Sam second thoughts, and generally advising that he “have faith” and “be patient.” But Sam can’t do that either. His patience, his inaction, already consigned Dean to the Pit, and Sam's faith has never been shakier. He davens every morning because he is afraid to break the routine, but the words fall out of his mouth stone-heavy, a collection of sounds that never coalesce into meanings. He doesn't let them. He cannot be grateful for anything, or hopeful for any kind of future.

There is no middle road that Sam can see, no compromise, no best strategy. He is completely stuck, and the longer it takes him to decide what to do, the longer Dean is suffering.

***

 _This is Sam. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can_. “Hey there Sam, it’s Bobby. I know things are rough right now and maybe you’re not checking your messages. But if you could just gimme a call when you get this. I just wanna know…I just want you to know I’m here for ya, son. Call me back, you stubborn asshole.” _Click._

***

The horns of Dean’s amulet, which Sam has been wearing beneath his shirt, dig into Sam’s breastbone when he sleeps. He likes the pressure and the weight, the constant reminder. He hopes it leaves a bruise.

***

Sam gets so angry that he runs out and ganks a nest of vampires all by himself, just to have something to kill.

Cas and Ruby exchange worried looks when Sam comes back to the motel, chest heaving and spattered all over with blood, to clean his machete and drink and brood. He thinks he should be concerned that those two are starting to agree, and that the thing they are agreeing on is _him_.

All he feels is numb.

***

One night, Sam has a vision of himself pulling Dean’s guts out through a slit Sam has cut into Dean’s belly. Blood everywhere and Dean’s eyes so so green. Copper smell cut through with the smell of sweat and rot and shit. Sam’s bloody hands in Dean’s hair.

Sam barely makes it to the bathroom in time. He falls back into fitful sleep with his head on the cool porcelain of the bathtub, the fan whirring white noise into the air around him, which is much too quiet without anyone’s snores keeping Sam awake. The murderscene stench lingers in his nose.

***

Sam is getting desperate. He tries eating a demon but he can’t go through with it, his entire body rejecting the oily black smoke as it funnels toward his mouth. He walks back to the car feeling shockingly present, head clear for once of the ever-present ache, like he just got slapped awake from out of hypnosis. What the fuck does he think he’s doing?

He curls up in the Impala’s footwell, face pressed into the joint of the bench seat and arms cocooning his head, shielding him from the harsh afternoon light. Sam closes his eyes and inhales, but he can’t smell anything except old leather.

***

Sam watches himself standing at the gates of Hell, feels the words resonate in his chest firmer than any he has ever spoken, girded with anger and strength.

He hears his own voice in stereo—both from inside the vision and with his own ears—as his words crackle like lightning across the empty space between them and the tall iron gate. The air shivers like steam from a pot of boiling water, like a mirage on the blacktop. It will work. It has to work.

***

He sits Cas and Ruby down in the space between the two motel beds, crosslegged like teenagers at a sleepover, and makes them help him draw sigils for strength and protection all over himself in black sharpie, as many as they know between the three of them. Ruby makes a quip about painting their nails next, and Cas coughs a little laugh.

Ruby stretches onto her tiptoes to kiss Sam on the cheek before they go. “For luck,” she says. She’s smirking but there is something else in her eyes. Sam bends down and kisses her back, right in the centre of her forehead. She drops back down to the soles of her feet and blows out a breath, “Hah!” Now she’s grinning. He’s surprised her. 

Cas’ palms feel warmer than Sam expected when they rest on his shoulders to give him the _nesiyat kapayim_ , which Cas intones in sombre, earnest Hebrew with an accent Sam has never heard before. Cas’ gaze is intent on Sam but it isn’t difficult at all to meet his eyes.

***

Sam stands at the gate. Castiel has posted himself at Sam’s right hand, the rumpled-salesman appearance of his vessel outstripped by the holy determination glowing blue from his eyes, wings outstretched around the three of them black as soot and shadow. Ruby flanks Sam from the left, her demonic form burning beneath the skin of her vessel like banked coals, her fiery dragon tail curling up behind them in a silent threat. And Sam himself towers over them both, a hand outstretched in front of him, hair falling into his golden eyes, stirring up a breeze from the intensity of his power.

Sam stood there already in his vision, and will stand there again in his dreams. The moment is timeless and therefore inevitable. He was always going to be right here, Cas and Ruby at his back; always going to choose Dean over everything else; always going to pull that boiling air into his lungs to yell “Give me my brother back, you son of a bitch!”

***

A hand bursts out of the gravedirt, scrabbling for purchase in the grass, desperate to pull itself up and out into the light.

***

Dean’s body, unmarred by hellhound wounds or hellscape scars. Dean’s face, soft and still and so goddamn familiar. Sam throws his arms around Dean, cradling his body, both of them streaked black with demon blood and grave dirt. Cas and Ruby lean on each other for support, propped against a tall obelisk headstone. Sam holds Dean’s face in his hands and prays over him in the graveyard, strokes his dirty hair and wipes obsessively at the black blood he’s gotten spattered across Dean’s cheekbones, calling his name and begging him to wake up.

And of course Dean puts up a hand, covers Sam’s with it, and says, “Sammy? What the fuck did you do?” And then everyone is yelling and crying, Cas praising God and Ruby saying fuckfuckfuckshitfuck over and over again. Sam just grabs onto Dean and pulls him all the way into his lap—“Whoa, easy there Sasquatch!”—and shoves his face into Dean’s neck and starts to cry.

***

They get peach hand-pies from a stand at the side of the road. Cas chews his thoughtfully, frowning after every bite and getting crumbs all down the front of his trenchcoat. Ruby laughs at him and licks juice from the side of her hand; she had eaten hers in three huge bites. Sam glances at the angel and the demon in the backseat, then back to his brother, as familiar in profile from the passenger seat as Sam’s own hands in his lap. Dean feels Sam looking at him and glances over.

“Whattaya think you’re lookin’ at, huh?” His eyes flick to the road, to the rearview, then back to Sam. They are so very green.

“You got pie crumbs all over, Dean, you’re a mess,” Sam says, trying for teasing around the lump in his throat.

“Worth it,” Dean says, eyes crinkling up at the corners. He moves one hand from the wheel onto Sam’s knee, gives him a rough squeeze. “Best peach pie I ever had.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! <3


End file.
